Petal to the Metal

Convivium, 3 August 2017

Ottawa spends $50 million on showpiece gardens in Winnipeg. Yet Churchill's lone rail line can't be repaired. From Confederation to now, Canada began to go seriously off track.

A few weeks back I wondered whether the dominant theme of Canada 150 – a nation built on nastiness to Indigenous peoples – might work to the practical detriment of Canada’s aboriginal communities.

Denunciations of the past are easy to make. Building in the present is rather more difficult. If it is possible to demonstrate one’s Indigenous bona fides by denouncing what others did a long time ago, why not opt for that rather than doing something constructive, but arduous, today?

News arrives from Manitoba that makes the point so perfectly as to be hilarious. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who wears his Haida on his arm, was out on the sort of routine foreign visitthat prime ministers from Montreal make to western Canada.